It is a common practice in connection with merchandising of paperback books for the distributor to credit the retailer for unsold copies. To receive credit the retailer removes the outer cover and returns it to the distributor. This reduces the handling and shipping cost of entire books. However, it is also a common practice to provide printed advertising inserts bound into sections of a book, or inserted loose between the pages. Occasionally these advertising inserts include coupons which are used as promotional aids to sell subscriptions to book clubs, and other products. Normally, publishers have not provided control for redemption of these coupons because the advertising insets are often inserted in different places in the page sections which would require a lot of time searching through the various publications to retrieve the coupon inserts to return them with the covers.
Heretofore, paperback books have had front and back covers made from a heavy grade paper stock folded in half and glued to the center fold of the book insert, or front and back covers are made of a lesser grade paper folded in multiple plies which are then glued together at their interfaces and stapled or glued to the center fold of the book insert. In the latter construction, the widths of the inner plies of the cover are either folded one-fourth of the total width of the cover sheet or blank to provide a double ply spine receiving areas for stapling or gluing to the book insert, or the width of the inner plies are folded less than the total width of the cover sheet or blank to provide a single ply spine receiving area for stapling or gluing to the book insert. In each of these cases the finished cover had ends which by reason of the folding operations are rounded to avoid the so-called "raw" edges so many times associated with cutting or other severing operations.
It has been suggested in U.S. Pat. No. 2,132,341, to provide a multiple ply cover with an integral fly leaf for each or both of the front and back cover portions by providing sufficient additional width of cover sheet material. In the same patent it is also suggested that they fly leaves could also be printed, if desired.
A search of the prior art patents on book covers and coupon inserts developed the following list of patents:
U.S. Pat. No. Re. 26,049 PA1 U.S. Pat. No. 1,495,831 PA1 U.S. Pat. No. 2,132,341 PA1 U.S. Pat. No. 2,185,392 PA1 U.S. Pat. No. 2,309,244 PA1 U.S. Pat. No. 3,520,560 PA1 U.S. Pat. No. 3,582,111 PA1 U.S. Pat. No. 3,858,792.